There You'll Be
by Miss Meggie
Summary: DTBH & Ipod Challenge Fic: Leland realizes sometimes people change you and leave huge holes behind them.


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**AN: I do not know Leland Chapman or anyone related with the show! I mean no harm by anything this is just for fun! I own nothing but my stories and original characters. Enjoy! Please review. -Meghan**

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**Faith Hill**

**"There You'll Be"**

**When I think back**

**On these times**

**And the dreams**

**We left behind**

**I'll be glad 'cause**

**I was blessed to get**

**To have you in my life**

**When I look back**

**On these days**

**I'll look and see your face**

**You were right there for me**

**[Chorus:]**

**In my dreams**

**I'll always see you soar**

**Above the sky**

**In my heart**

**There will always be a place**

**For you for all my life**

**I'll keep a part**

**Of you with me**

**And everywhere I am**

**There you'll be**

**And everywhere I am**

**There you'll be**

**Well you showed me**

**How it feels**

**To feel the sky**

**Within my reach**

**And I always**

**Will remember all**

**The strength you**

**Gave to me**

**Your love made me**

**Make it through**

**Oh, I owe so much to you**

**You were right there for me**

**[Repeat chorus]**

**'Cause I always saw in you**

**My light, my strength**

**And I want to thank you**

**Now for all the ways**

**You were right there for me**

**You were right there for me**

**For always**

**[Chorus:]**

**In my dreams**

**I'll always see you soar**

**Above the sky**

**In my heart**

**There will always be a place**

**For you for all my life**

**I'll keep a part**

**Of you with me**

**And everywhere I am**

**There you'll be**

**And everywhere I am**

**There you'll be**

**There you'll be**

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Denver

1991

I was failing chemistry badly so Mrs. Daniels insisted she assign me a tutor I was hoping for a hot cheerleader instead I got Julie Portman. The geeky girl who always raised her hand first in class but I guess If I have to have a tutor might as well have a smart one but why couldn't she be smart and hot that's all I ask. She shuffled forward when the teacher kept us behind to explain we would be working together she kept her gaze cemented to floor trying to look mesmerized by the linoleum tiles. Great she was weirder than I thought just what I needed my dad had already made things difficult with my friends over the gang thing. Come on god just add more shit to the pile that is my life.

"Where do you wanna meet? What time?' I ask realizing she is painfully shy as she tears her gaze away from the floor. "The park on western drive 4:30 ok with you?" "Yeah that's fine."

Later

I watched with disinterest as Julie rambled on about some mumbo jumbo. She was wearing overalls and a long sleeved thermal shirt I knew she must be hot in it I was a warm spring day. She was a little plain but not homely. She had light brown pulled into a tight ponytail. She was pale in complexion had big brown eyes the seemed to eat the rest of her face with their size she had full lips that seemed to permanently pout and a perfectly straight nose. I realize now as I peruse her she would be pretty if she put a little work into it.

"Do you understand now?" she asked knocking me out of distraction.

"Huh?"

"Never mind."

"Don't you wanna do something more fun?' I asked her smiling at her suggestively maybe I could charm her into doing my work for me.

"No, I have better things to do than waste it on you. So if you don't wanna learn you might as well tell me now so I can get Mrs. Daniels to get you a new tutor who will no doubt fuck you and do your work." she said slamming her book shut and get up to leave.

"Wait I'll pay attention I swear." she sat back down

We met again in the park the next week I sat under a tree waiting for her. I was in a terrible mood. Dad had just made all my friends think I was a nark. Making us all ditch our colors and music, everyone is treating me as if I have the Ebola virus. I look fucking dorky in my Kmart clothes Now I was hanging out with Julie the geek I was never going to be cool again.

When she walked up to me, I was not at all prepared for what I saw. She was wearing a midriff bearing top and tight jeans but what really got me was the navel piercing. She didn't exactly scream I'm the kind of girl who pokes holes in her body… Her light brown hair had blonde highlights I had never noticed before, her hair floated around her shoulders like a tousled halo.

"Hey Leland wanna review chapter 6?"

I proceeded to try to find my voice as my mouth went dry.

"Yeah sure." I replied hoarsely she sat down next me and opened the book between us on both our laps. Try to concentrate on what she is saying but the scent of her is teasing my senses distracting me. I cannot like her I tell myself. She's a geek it will be social suicide to even pretend to know her much less like her.

A few weeks later

As hard as I've tried not to like her over the past weeks I have failed miserably. She could see my struggle and told me what she thought.

"You know Leland you don't have to be big tough gang guy for people to like you just be yourself the rest of the shit doesn't matter… I mean your dad made sure you would either have no friends or get new ones. So might as well be my friend." I had to smile she was a ball buster but I liked it. "Well at least you're honest."

A few days later, I kissed her. Just a simple soft lingering kiss not my usual forceful sexually charged get my way kiss. I tasted her strawberry lip-gloss as I pressed my mouth to hers. I didn't know it then but later in life, I would never again taste faux strawberry without thinking of her. As I pull away, I see surprise on her face.

"Please don't regret it. I don't." I whispered.

"Too cool for his own good Leland Chapman doesn't regret kissing nerdy Julie what's the world coming too?" she replied with a shy smile.

"Nope in fact I'd like to do it again I replied cheekily. This time she kissed me full on and with tongue. She was a damn good kisser who knew.

We soon became inseparable at school at home everywhere we went we where together. Her parents were leery of my past at first but soon got over once they saw how happy I made Julie.

One day my world changed completely. We where fooling around one day I thought for sure I was gonna get a home run. "Leland stop I can't do this."

I looked up her. "Why?"

"Because this isn't fair to you I won't be here much longer."

"What do you mean? Are you moving?"

"No."

"I don't…"

"I'm going to die Leland. I have an enlarged heart and my tissue and blood types are rare it's difficult to find donors…" tears are brimming in her eyes and I am finding it hard to breathe to hold back my tears and anger.

"Leland I know I should have told you sooner but I couldn't because then it would be real… before we became friends I had nothing to lose really so it was easier to accept my fate. I have never been the type of girl who had lots of friends and guys attention I liked it when I had yours … I didn't wanna give that up."

I left her under our tree and ran as fast and as far as my feet could carry me, tears streaming down my face. I slammed my bedroom door and collapsed on my bed crying hard with the kind of sobs that steal your breath and can't escape your body.

My mom slipped into the room. "She told you didn't she`?" I heard my dad step in behind my mom he stepped around her. Sat on my bed and pulled me into his arms. I didn't care how unmanly it was to cling to him at that moment all my anger toward him evaporated mom sat on the other side of me rubbing my back. In between sobs and hitching breaths, I ask, "What do I do?"

"What you did before you knew." My mom replied quietly "I love her and there is nothing I can do to help her."

"Sometimes son you just have to give things over to god but you can love her and hard as it will be to lose her it might be worth the pain because you will gain more from loving her and making the best of the time she's got."

"How did you know?"

"Her parents called us. She didn't want them to say anything so don't anything when you are ready I have information you can read about her condition."

I went to school the next day because I knew she'd be there. There was no way she was going to ruin her perfect attendance record. I walked around with red-rimmed eyes and a black mood. I was shocked to get to chemistry class before her. We had a substitute today so it would be easy to talk to her. I stole my friend chance's seat next to her and waited. A few minutes later the tardy bell rang and she hadn't sat down next me I looked around for her thinking that she had switched seats to avoid me, when my eyes landed on the open door way my heart nearly stopped she was using it to hold herself up her face white as sheet and her lips blue. I was up outta my chair and across the room in a snap. "Le, I can't catch… my…"

I was now holding her up the teacher just staring along with the class "Its ok Jules do you have an oxygen tank here?"

"First floor…office." she said in a breathy tone that would have been sexy any other time.

"How do you…"

"I did a little research…" I turned to the crappy sub who was just watching this happen "I'm taking her downstairs."

"Chance come with me and walk in front us to make sure we don't get stopped up."

"Do you want me to go get the elevator key from Mr. Kilgore?" Claire Danby asked she was preppy and hateful to Julie but did seemed genuinely concerned. "No, it'll just be quicker if I carry her."

I scooped her up "comfy?" I ask making her smile.

I took the stairs to at a time. Chem. class was on the top floor "Lela… you might wanna… slow down if ….those baggy pants of yours … fall down then you'll trip and drop me." she was forever teasing me about my fashion choices.

I knew she was trying to lighten the mood I turned my face, kissed her lightly on her lips they were still blue tinged, and cool. "If I drop you I will wear wranglers for a month… deal. How you holding up baby?"

"No matter how many times this happens I get freaked out."

"That's okay…were almost there."

A week later

We are setting under our tree by the pond just moonlight and stars as our witnesses.

"What do you wanna do with your time Jules?" I ask it's hard to ask the question to realize she won't always be here in my arms or telling me what to do. Making me a better person. Believing in me and not taking my half ass attempts at thing always expecting my best. I had decided the day she told me that she was dying to take the time we had and to try out run death for as long as I could.

"I want to live and be normal and love you and my friends and family for as long as I can and experience everything I can."

"Okay… I have an idea… marry me?" she looked at me as if I had suddenly grown an extra head. She laughed lightly "we can't we are fifteen remember."

"Aw, that's just a technicality. It won't be legal obviously but we could make vows to each other." "Okay sure." she kissed me lightly I stood and pulled her to her feet.

"Okay I'll go first." she said "I can't promise to love for the rest of your life but I do promise to love you for the rest of mine. If there is, a heaven and I believe there is I promise to watch over you perched on the stars…I promise to take what life has to offer me and live it down to the last drop. I know I will go with a smile on my face and lightened heart because I know those I leave behind will carry me with them until there last day. I love you and I promise it's the truth. I have no regrets. In fact I'm glad you were failing chemistry."

I take a deep breath trying to gather what I am feeling and put it in to words. I unashamedly wipe the tears from my eyes. She slid a little diamond incrusted silver band off her ring finger. "This a promise ring that my dad gave me as an outward of the vow I made to him and myself to save my innocence for marriage. "That wasn't why…"

"I know that I want to. You might as well have the physical symbol as well. You can say what you wanted to now." she slid the band on my pinky it wouldn't fit anywhere else she had small hands.

"I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I will love you for the entirety of my life that I will never forget you and carry you in my heart for all the days! I promise to always try to make you smile and laugh. I promise I will do my best to make you proud of me. I won't waste my life with stupid choices. I promise to help you pack as much life experience in the time you have left I want to thank you for believing in me and seeing in me what no else bothered to. I love you with out regret or reservation." I slid the Celtic knot ring my mother gave me on to her finger. When I kissed her this time, she tasted of the vanilla ice cream she had eaten earlier in the day.

When we were together under our tree, it was slow, sweet, and innocent. She was the only I have ever been with that I have experienced intimacy of that magnitude.

2008

I stand before her grave in the snow, not one day goes by I don't think of her and what we had together. I carry her with me. She lives in my dreams beneath our tree and with an innocence that was never taken. She changed me made whole. I was enough for once in my life. I hope that I have made her proud and that she is smiling from her perch on a star.

I hear my dad's boots crunching in the snow I as he approaches I turn to him

"Visiting your girl I see." he said

I nod "I don't know why I come know she's not here really."

"

If it brings you peace then that's reason enough… besides I know you she's with you always… here." he says tapping my chest. I lay bright yellow roses in the vase. Kiss my fingertips and brushed them over the cool stone engraving of the words. "She was deeply loved."


End file.
